A stampede occurred during a religious event of Pandit Pradeep Mishra at Shatabdi Nagar in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut.
The incident took place at around 1pm when private security personnel deployed at the venue tried to stop women from entering.
Additional Director General of Meerut Zone Dhruv Kant Thakur said that no deaths or injuries have been reported so far.
Today was the sixth day of the event. Around one lakh people are said to have been attending the function every day.
More details about the incident are awaited.
Hathras stampede
In July, about 121 people, mostly women and children, were killed in a stampede at Phulrai village under Sikandra Rau police station limits of Hathras district on July 2.
The stampede took place during a satsang addressed by self-styled godman Surajpal alias Bhole Baba, a resident of Kasganj district in UP.
The crowd had rushed to touch Baba’s feet as he was leaving the venue. People fell over each other to reach him, resulting in stampede. Around 2.5 lakh people had gathered for the event.
Police investigating the case had blamed organisers of the event for mismanagement that led to the stampede. Against the permitted gathering of 80,000, the crowd exceeded to over 2.50 lakh.
Bhole Baba is a former UP police staffer who worked with the Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) for 18 years and took voluntary retirement in 1990, when he was posted in Etah, in order to pursue spirituality.
Known for a certain flamboyance, he has a vast following among the lower middle class and the poor in the Etah-Kasganj and the Braj region and some other pockets.
The Hathras police have already given a clean chit to Narayan Sakar Hari as the charge sheet submitted in court does not have Baba’s name.
